The Lord Mayor said red kiosks are a London icon

Alderman Michael Savory is writing to the company because he fears the numbers of the public phones booths are dropping each year.

BT said a small number of kiosks have been taken out of service because of the prevalence of mobile phones.

But the firm added it is mainly removing the more modern style.

'Iconic image'

Les King, from BT, told BBC NEWS: "We've seen a huge increase in the number of mobile phones and people are not using phone boxes as much as they use mobile phones so consequently we need less pay phones so we've been reducing the numbers.

"But we've only see a very small reduction in the number of red boxes, the majority that we've been taking out have been modern kiosks and certainly that's the case in the City of London as is the case right across the country."

The Lord Mayor said: "The benefit of the red telephone kiosk is not so much a practical source, because so many people have now can both use their mobiles and other forms of telephone kiosk, but particularly because it's an iconic image of London just as the double decker red bus is identified as a feature of the City of London, so is the red telephone kiosk."